A wireless communication device, such as a cellular telephone or mobile station, is capable of making and receiving voice calls and/or sending and receiving data over wireless communication networks. Recent developments, including, for example, Integrated Digital Enhanced Networks (iDen), have given such wireless devices the ability to communicate in “push-to-talk” (PTT) modes using push-to-talk over cellular (PoC) technology.
PoC communication may be adapted for one-to-one talks or group talks which are session based. For example, the user of a mobile station may send an “invitation” for PoC communication to the other participants who may accept or ignore the invitation. When an invitation is accepted, a PoC session is created between the two participants. Further acceptances of the invitation will expand the session into a group session having more than two participants. Thus, teleconferences may be conducted or chat rooms and ad-hoc group sessions may be formed.
One of the most significant advantages of PTT, though, is that it allows for what is referred to as “all-the-time” high-availability service, ensuring substantial continuity of service to subscribers. As a consequence, calls that are initiated may be completed with little or virtually no connect time, in contrast to that associated with conventional cellular phones that must wait while “dialing”. Thus, by using PTT, call connections may be established much quicker, resulting in much faster response times than is possible using conventional cellular phone technologies.
To support such quick response times the receiving mobile station in a PTT mode must be configured to periodically check a paging channel for receipt of a paging signal. When in PTT mode, this check must be performed more frequently than in a conventional cellular phone service. More frequent checks, as will be appreciated, drain resources on the mobile station more quickly, resulting in reduced battery life available for the mobile station.
Therefore, what is needed is a push-to-talk system in which the mobile station can be configured to optimally use battery resources while maintaining a quality of service desirable for the user.